Entries in Sebring 12 Hours
(1)

The Summer of Love lives on. Spectators brought their own mulch, border, flowers, flags and multi-color pinwheels to the race to build Dr. timothy Leary’s grave….When the Editor discovered that I was making a trip to Sebring for the 12 Hours along with my son, and ace photographer, Danny, he shrugged off suggestions for a spectator’s view of the race, claiming it would add nothing to the voluminous coverage that would follow on TV and motorsport-focused websites. But I knew I had to do something. This was Sebring, a cultural touchstone that was parodied by Ron Leibman’s character Murch in the 1972 Robert Redford movie The Hot Rock. While heading down I-75 from The Virtual Driver’s satellite office in Atlanta, I called an old friend in Ocala to compare weekend plans, and that’s when the idea for this feature began to hatch.

“I can’t believe you’re driving nine hours to see a bunch of cars go around in circles,” the voice on the other side of the telephone line sniffed. Fair enough. Most race fans hear similar admonitions from people who find racing boring, even though those same critics may be mesmerized by The Westminster Dog Show, PGA golf tournaments or most stick and ball sports. What my friend doesn’t realize is that the race is only part of the spectacle, even though it’s pretty spectacular in its own right. However, in order to understand Sebring, you have to comprehend how one man’s vision of a race in the middle of nowhere drove a nondescript village to international stardom, and the cultural significance of it all.